Sales figures suggest the key format for the success of Skylanders is the Wii. With both Skylanders Swap Force and Disney Infinity Wii versions being developed by a secondary developer, will they deliver a fully fledged experience to attract that substantial family market.

We are often misinformed over which games are successful and which struggle to break even. Skylanders has been a success story, there is no denying that, but it’s not until you look at the Skylanders sales data in detail that a clear picture emerges.

Here we can see the full picture of how Skylanders sold on different formats. Firstly, in blue, we see the slow burn of the initial Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure game. Released in October, it wasn’t until the Christmas period that things really took off. Rather than the usual big week one sales that slowly decline, here the pattern was reversed with more units being sold week on week right through to week 12.

Also interesting in the blue Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure graph is that the game went on selling well even when the next iteration was released. Although it is hard to be sure, this could be down to the limited edition figures in that Start Pack, and the backwards compatible feature of Skylanders Giants.

Moving on to Skylanders Giants and the three graphs for Wii, 360 and PS3 sales we can see how the different systems performed in relation to each other. Most striking is how far the Wii version of the game out performs the other formats. At a time when other developers (LEGO Marvel Super Heroes for example won’t have a Wii version) are reducing their spend and focus on the Wii Giants was able to leverage that install base effectively.

Here we see how critical the Wii version of the game was to the success of the Skylanders Giants, and what an intelligent decision is was for Toys For Bob to focus most on the Wii version of Spyro’s Adventure and continue that priority through into Giants. After the initial steep sales curve it’s also telling that the Wii sales are sustained at a higher rate for longer than the other formats which flatten off in a more traditional sales pattern.

Of course this sort of pattern and success isn’t now limited to Skylanders. Disney Interactive have also worked hard to recreate this with their toy-meets-game title, Disney Infinity. As you can see below, the pattern is a little different. Even in the first five weeks of sales though we can see the 360 and PS3 formats featuring more heavily than the Wii. If the Skylanders sales are to be a guide here this may suggest that Disney Infinity will need to have other means to sustain the long tail sales enjoyed by Giants.

Disney Infinity sales (source: VGChartz.com)

Equally, it is interesting to see that almost as many families are buying the Wii version of Disney Infinity as any other format. With this version not offering split screen multi-player in Play Set modes or access to the excellent download Toy Box content these families are not experiencing Disney Infinity at its best. The pressure is on to see how fully featured a version of Swap Force Beenox can deliver on the Wii.

Of course Disney Infinity is a more modular experience with additional Play Sets being more like entire new games, compared to Skylanders Swap Force’s great emphasis on characters and Adventure pack side-missions. Disney Infinity also have their Power Disc line of merchandise that can be used to offer new abilities in the game many months after release.

Perhaps the most interesting graph at this stage is to plot both Disney Infinity and Skylander: Spyro’s Adventure and Skylanders Giants on the same graph. Setting aside the Wii format for a level comparison on the 360, there are some interesting points to note.

Disney Infinity & Skylanders Sales (source: VGChartz.com)

Here we see that Disney Infinity has impressively outsold Skylanders Giants on the 360 in the first few weeks at retail, no mean feat. Equally we can also see that sustaining those sales is where the real challenge lies as the Disney Infinity plot starts to dip down towards Skylanders Giants.

We need to note here that Infinity launched earlier in the year than Giants and will have a different pattern of sales as we approach the holiday season. Also, with new consoles approaching this year some consumers may be holding off investing in a game like Infinity until they have decided whether to upgrade to Xbox One and PS4. This underlines the importance for big budget games such as Swap Force and Infinity to be available from day one on new platforms to encourage early adopter families towards their ecosystem of figures and games.

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